How Language Opened Culture When He Moved From the UK to China: S2E3

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Learning Mandarin Chinese through self-study means balancing Chinese characters, Pinyin, reading, listening, speaking, handwriting, and regional accents that rarely improve together. Ian shows how flashcards, Pleco, graded readers, bilingual news, and living in China helped him reach approximately 3,000 characters, read Chinese newspapers, and keep progressing when familiar methods stopped working.

The first time I met Ian, we were walking around Shanghai during a work event and discussing the challenges of learning Mandarin. When he mentioned a Chinese cursive handwriting book he had to special order, I immediately made a mental note to invite him onto the podcast. Thankfully, he agreed.

What You’ll Learn About Self-Studying Mandarin Chinese

• How to memorize Chinese characters without relying only on Pinyin
• Why handwriting improves Chinese character recognition
• Which Mandarin apps support reading and listening
• Why Mandarin skills develop at different speeds
• How bilingual news helps learners read Chinese newspapers
• Why regional accents and cursive Hanzi create new challenges

Why Chinese Characters Motivate Learners to Study Mandarin

Ian became interested in hanzi characters during a 2003 trip to Hong Kong. Frustrated that he couldn’t read the signs, he bought all three volumes of Fun with Chinese Characters.

Back in the UK, he studied with a Colloquial Chinese textbook and listened to the dialogues during long drives. Mandarin’s writing system and internal logic felt completely different from French and German, which he already had experience learning.

How Flashcards and Handwriting Support Chinese Character Learning

Pinyin alone didn’t help Ian remember vocabulary. Hanzi gave each word a visual structure and helped him distinguish between homophones, words that sound the same but look different (in English "close" and "clothes" are an example) 

He first learned about 800 characters from one book and reached close to 1,000 before moving to China. He later used Tuttle’s Chinese in a Flash cards and created extra cards for missing HSK characters.

Over several years, Ian reached approximately 3,000 characters. When similar-looking Hanzi began blending together, handwriting practice helped him notice the components that made each character different.

Why Pinyin Can Make Chinese Reading Harder

In graded readers, Ian’s eyes were pulled toward familiar Roman letters instead of Chinese characters. He thinks of Pinyin as a voice whispering the meaning of a word. 

Pleco helped by letting him read Hanzi without visible Pinyin, tap unfamiliar characters for definitions, and use text-to-speech. He has also used ChinesePod, Skritter, Anki, Du Chinese, and The Chairman’s Bao.

Why Mandarin Skills Develop at Different Speeds

Ian describes reading, handwriting, listening, and speaking as partly separate systems. Focusing on one often means another receives less attention.

His learning moves in waves. He may focus on characters, return to grammar, or increase listening practice after a difficult conversation. Uneven progress can create study guilt, but it doesn’t mean the learner is failing.

How to Start Reading Chinese Newspapers

Chinese newspapers remained difficult because they use formal vocabulary, four-character idioms, cultural references, and structures connected to Classical Chinese.

Ian improved during 18 months back in the UK by reading BBC Chinese and bilingual New York Times articles. He read the Chinese first, checked the English, then returned to identify what he had missed.

Why Living in China Doesn’t Guarantee Mandarin Listening Fluency

Even after years in China, listening remained one of Ian’s weakest skills. Regional accents, tones, homophones, local vocabulary, and Shanghainese made everyday speech difficult to decode.

Taxi drivers in Changsha once laughed at the northern accent he’d picked up in Beijing. Later, native speakers said his pronunciation had shifted toward his girlfriend’s southern Mandarin.

Why Cursive Hanzi Is Difficult to Read

Printed Chinese didn’t prepare Ian for handwritten notes. Native speakers join strokes, reduce components, and use forms resembling shorthand.

He found an out-of-print book called Learning Chinese Script to understand recurring patterns. Before that, a barber in rural Hunan tried to say his haircut was finished using both a local dialect and a handwritten note. Ian couldn’t understand either one.

His journey shows that Mandarin progress doesn’t require one perfect method. It requires enough curiosity and persistence to return when the next plateau appears.

Original publication date: October 21, 2018

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